Five ways you can lower your cost of living
It's easy when you know how! 😉
Greetings from Wittman Watch HQ! 👋 🇺🇸
Last Tuesday we urged you to vote (well done! 👏) and talked about why we need to unite to beat Wittman.
On Thursday we profiled Shannon Taylor, and showed how her approach is different from Wittman’s. (⭐️ Spoiler: she’s done actual, productive work and benefited the people she’s served!)
Congressman Rob Wittman is the architect of the grim scene that’s been building across Virginia’s First District: shockingly expensive groceries, higher gas prices, spiking utility bills, higher healthcare costs, and tariff-driven price increases across the board. Since President Trump’s second term began, Wittman has been a willing ally of Trump’s cost-raising agenda. His votes to raise our cost of living have resulted in an average cost increase of $2,238 per household, even as he grew his personal wealth through energy stocks and tax breaks on his triple-decker beach house.
Trump’s agenda is squeezing VA-01 constituents every day. The higher cost of living disproportionately impacts low-income families, whose limited income leaves “little room to absorb additional expenses.” Many Americans can’t afford basic necessities like toilet paper. Some have resorted to selling their blood plasma to make ends meet.
The good news? A solution to make everyday essentials more affordable is within easy reach. Here are 5 ways you can lower your cost of living.
Problem: Groceries are too expensive and harder to get
Solution: Vote Rob Wittman out of office
Summer isn’t over yet, but you might want to think twice about throwing those juicy hamburgers on the grill because beef costs 14.8% more than it did a year ago.” Coffee? Up nearly $10 per pound. In Trump’s first year of his second term, Americans paid $310 more for groceries than in 2024. In April 2026, grocery prices jumped 0.7% in a single month — the largest monthly increase since August 2022. Rising food costs have forced nearly half of Virginians into debt.
Why are you paying higher grocery prices? One reason is the labor shortage. Wittman could have helped stabilize farm labor by co-sponsoring the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act, but he chose not to. The consequence of increased ICE raids and H. R. 1, which included a massive tax on legal immigration, is the shrinkage of the farm labor force and the subsequent spike in food prices. Who pays for that? You already know: you do. The average family will pay roughly $2,150 more per year for food, housing, and services by 2028. Another factor is the Trump tariffs, which inflated the costs of imported food products for consumers.
Increased diesel prices from the Iran conflict and the repeated closures of the Strait of Hormuz have had a ripple effect on all household expenses. Food distributors have to pay higher fuel prices, too, and they pass the cost onto customers. Food banks are also feeling the squeeze from higher fuel costs.
And with his vote for H. R. 1, Wittman cut federal SNAP funding by $186 billion through 2034 and shifted the cost of SNAP to the states. H. R. 1 made the deepest cuts to SNAP food assistance in history. Children, seniors, disabled people, and people with low-paying jobs are now at risk of hunger or starvation. Since July 2025, SNAP participation dropped by more than 4 million people. About 2.4 million people will lose SNAP in a typical month. The 14% drop in SNAP benefits have forced low-income and disabled residents in Virginia to “choose between food, shelter, and healthcare.” In rural counties in VA-01 where a third of grocery sales run through SNAP, the cuts threaten the stores themselves. Overall, because of cuts to SNAP, grocery prices go up and access to groceries becomes more limited. And Wittman is to blame for all of it.
In one of the richest nations in the world, we shouldn’t have to worry about our children going hungry. That’s why it’s crucial that we elect Shannon Taylor, the VA-01 candidate whose plan is to “Serve the People First.” Unlike Wittman, she understands that food isn’t optional for Virginians. Voting for Taylor will help lower your cost of living because she’ll work to put food on your table, restore SNAP funding, support legislation like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, and help put a stop to Trump’s illegal tariffs.
Problem: Higher gas prices
Solution: Vote Rob Wittman out of office
Trump’s reckless invasion of Iran resulted in soaring gas prices; collectively, Americans have spent a walloping extra $78 billion for gas and diesel since the conflict started in February. Virginia families have seen their gas costs increase by $605 since then. As of August 5, gas prices in Virginia were averaging about $4 per gallon. It’s getting so bad that Chesapeake community advocates distributed food, gas cards, and household essentials to struggling residents.
Wittman is making this situation worse. Not only did he fail to object to the Iran War, but he also voted against the Iran War Powers Resolution. Then he voted for H.Con Res. 113, which meant an additional $95 billion in new defense spending, including for Trump’s unauthorized war with Iran. More funding will prolong the conflict — and that means there’s no relief in sight for your high gas bill.
What does Wittman gain from your higher gas prices? $68,000 of his PAC donations came from oil and gas, mining, chemical and manufacturing, and electric utilities. He eagerly courts big donors so he can stay in office and, in a vicious cycle, continues to vote for legislation that increases gas prices and explodes gas company profits (which even Trump is embarrassed about!). In a strike against your gas bill and the environment, Wittman voted against electric vehicle tax credits. He’s profiting from spiking gas prices and hoping his constituents don’t notice that he’s pickpocketing them.
We shouldn’t have to struggle with empty gas tanks and limited travel because of the president’s reckless whims and Wittman’s greed, while tax cuts are gifted to billionaires with private planes. Shannon Taylor can work to reassert Congressional war powers and vote to end Trump’s illegal Iran War. She’s far more likely than Wittman to hold Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other administration officials accountable for illegal war actions. She can also legislate for green, renewable energy, which in turn will make utilities more affordable.
Problem: Higher utility bills
Solution: Vote Rob Wittman out of office
Virginia families each paid an average of $170 more for electricity in 2025 compared to the previous year, in yet another example of how the cost of living has shot up across the board. Spiking utility bills have forced Virginians to make impossible choices while trying to manage their budgets.
The recent rate hike and last winter’s record freezing temperatures worsened the situation. Central Virginians have seen their energy bills double or even triple. Water utility increases are happening even as studies show data centers significantly threaten Virginia’s water supply. One solution is for the Virginia legislature to strengthen regulators’ permitting authority. Another is a state/federal moratorium on data centers.
Governor Spanberger is taking steps to tackle high energy costs,. She’s also intervening in the Dominion–NextEra merger case, skeptical of its benefit for the commonwealth. What is Rob Wittman doing? Making the situation worse. He once feigned concern about high energy bills driven by the data center boom: “I think people have very legitimate concerns, and that is: Who is going to pay the bill for the additional energy that’s demanded from this?...They go, ‘My power bill’s gone up because somebody down the road is building a data center.’”
That sounds reasonable until we understand a couple of things. First: Wittman is shifting the blame onto “somebody” when in fact he’s one of the culprits. Second: he hasn’t introduced or enacted any legislation that would compel data centers to pay their fair share of energy costs.
Wittman co-sponsored a 2026 bipartisan bill, the Ratepayer Protection Act (H. R. 9340) — conveniently six months before he’s up for re-election, but not at any other time during his 19 years in Congress. Otherwise, bills like Protecting Families from AI Data Center Energy Costs Act and the GRID Savings Act (S. 5199) have generally been sponsored by Democratic lawmakers.
Wittman’s H. R. 1 vote to end green energy credits raised average household electricity bills by about $110 a year. He ignores clean and renewable energy, with costly consequences for consumers: in VA-01 alone, nearly 70 clean energy projects worth $18.2 billion and creating 11,000 jobs are now threatened because of this provision. If the goal was to lower prices, why did Wittman and his cronies remove those credits? Because they care more about subsidizing fossil fuel companies than lowering your household expenses.
Dominion Energy claims data centers aren’t part of the problem. But as we’ve shown, data centers power Wittman’s pocketbook, not yours. He wants more data centers and intends to use the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to make it happen — even on federal land and military bases.
Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum have contributed to our higher utility bills as well. Those tariffs added over $800 million in costs to the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project. Who will suffer the cost of those tariff fees? We know the answer to that, and it’s not Dominion Energy, or Trump, or Wittman.
In 2025, when the Trump administration suspended the leases of “five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast,” Wittman merely pledged to “remain engaged with the Department of Interior.” He also hasn’t objected to Trump’s latest effort to discourage wind-energy expansion: buybacks of offshore wind leases that total nearly $4 billion.
CVOW is still the fastest way to deliver unparalleled affordable power to Virginians, yet Rob Wittman opposes beneficial energy strategies at every turn: he ignores clean/renewable energy; votes against green energy credits; votes for more data centers; and takes donations from Big Oil to stay in office and keep the cost of living spiraling out of control.
We shouldn’t have to worry about whether our lights will stay on or our water service will be cut off. Shannon Taylor will focus on reversing the catastrophic effects of H. R. 1, including restoring green energy credits. She can legislate for clean and renewable energy sources. She can also support a federal moratorium on data centers to prevent further strain on existing power plants and thermal turbine generators, and use her federal leverage to help preserve Virginia’s eastern region groundwater supply.
Problem: Higher healthcare costs
Solution: Vote Rob Wittman out of office
Whether or not you’re one of the roughly 23,000 VA-01 residents who will lose Medicaid coverage under the law Wittman voted for, your healthcare is about to cost a lot more, or possibly even disappear. Wittman and his VA-02 counterpart Rep. Jen Kiggans “demanded” that H. R. 1 not include Medicaid cuts, only to roll over and play dead once it became clear that sacrificing their own constituents was the road to a tax cut for their billionaire donors. In Virginia, that sacrifice amounted to 300,000 Virginians at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage.
Wittman’s vote for H. R. 1 cut $911 billion over a decade from Medicaid — the largest cut in American history. The Joint Economic Minority Committee projected that over 20,000 VA-01 residents would lose insurance coverage as a result. Then Wittman lied about who would lose Medicaid in the aftermath of H. R. 1. In fact, he’s the one who took away your Medicaid, and it was his votes that increased premiums even for people with employer-based healthcare.
Wittman was also one of the members of Congress who failed to renew expiring ACA subsidies. The spike in premiums led 33,000 Virginians to drop their coverage as of April 2026. Overall, 100,000 Virginians could be impacted by the expired subsidies.
Wittman’s vote for H. R. 1 also meant a loss of $50.4 billion for rural hospitals. Thirteen rural hospitals in Virginia are vulnerable to closure. Our own district’s VCU Health Tappahannock Hospital is at highest risk.
Unsustainable healthcare costs inevitably reduce our quality of life — and for what? So the billionaire class can get richer?
We don’t have to suffer from a mountain of healthcare burdens. Shannon Taylor is the representative we need to fix the ACA, restore funding for our rural hospitals, restore Medicaid funding, and perhaps work towards universal healthcare (like every other first world country on the planet). Federal funding — our taxpayer money that should be used to address our needs — will drive down healthcare costs across the board. All it takes is voting Wittman out and electing a representative who understands that affordable healthcare is a basic right, and that excuses about “waste, fraud, and abuse” were always a lie.
Problem: Price increases on everything else your household needs
Solution: Vote Rob Wittman out of office
Trump’s tariffs have hurt businesses large and small. Unable or unwilling to absorb arbitrary tariff fees, businesses pass those costs onto consumers and even employees. Virginia business owner Shirley Modlin of Powhatan testified to the Joint Economic Committee that “[a]s a result of this upheaval which has created such uncertainty, our employees are suffering from stagnant wages and the possibility of loss of benefits.”
We’ve already noted that price increases from tariffs on imported inputs and consumer goods raise operating costs and reduce customers’ real purchasing power, which hits smaller retailers, restaurants, and local service providers. We reported that Q1 2025 GDP actually contracted by 0.3% as importers tried to front-run Trump’s tariffs. That means an uncomfortably high probability that the U.S. economy will suffer a recession in the coming months.
On the farming front, Trump’s tariffs created an unpredictable market, devastating once-healthy agricultural profits and transforming them into steep losses almost overnight. Wittman failed to support or introduce bills that would help prevent farmers from having to liquidate their assets. In 2025, Trump’s tariffs cost the average Virginia household approximately $1,700-$2,100. That includes increased costs for basic needs like clothing and cars. Wittman did nothing to stop these reckless tariffs from wrecking families’ budgets.
The Supreme Court held that “IEEPA does not give the President authority to impose tariffs” (more on that ruling here). Then a trade court ruled that Trump’s 10% global tariffs are illegal. We’re not surprised. Wittman has done nothing to try and stop the tariffs, or to refund the tariff fees to consumers; we’re not surprised by that, either.
If we vote Wittman out, Shannon Taylor can use her prosecuting experience to help investigate Trump’s illegal tariffs and provide oversight into where the tariff fees went. It’d be a 100% change from Wittman, who’s doing absolutely nothing to rein in Trump’s corrupt actions, or recover money for consumers like us. Leveraging congressional authority to stop the tariffs is one way Taylor can help small businesses, farmers, and consumers thrive — in our own district, in Virginia, and nationwide.
What’s the net result of all of the corruption and bad-faith sham governance? Our cost-of-living skyrockets while Rob Wittman votes for tax breaks for billionaires (and at least one for himself). Wittman sacrificed VA-01 jobs on the altar of fossil fuel profits — jobs we need to afford things like gas, groceries, and utility bills. And Wittman voted for H. R. 1, which cuts Medicaid by a trillion dollars over the next ten years and increases healthcare costs for everyone. That’s a decade of our hard-earned taxpayer money filling the coffers of billionaires. It’s money in their pockets, not ours.
The best way to help reverse the drain on our wallets — and the one that’s most directly in our power! — is to vote Rob Wittman out of Congress for good.
Shannon Taylor's pledges to lower our cost of living
Mandate jail time for politicians who steal our taxpayer funds
Fight corruption by “self-interested politicians”
Hold illegal monopolies accountable
Protect our benefits by banning former members of congress from lobbying
Reform our political system that raises costs
Implement term limits to mitigate the number of representatives who vote for cost-spiking policies
This is the time to ask yourself: What’s in it for me? Wittman has seen to it that your tax dollars and your hard-earned wages are being funneled away from you, lining the pockets of billionaires and their self-dealing companies and accomplices. Now it’s time for a change. Frankly, you deserve better.
Your vote for Shannon Taylor on November 3 will help you keep your lights on, your car running, your benefits intact, your children fed, and your earnings working for YOU.
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